Ed Shuttleworth of Page Tech Systems Thousand Oaks, CA recently found
a great new opportunity for his business; by meeting a new set of customer
requirements for a newly merged company.
As a value-added reseller of automatic identification (AIDC)
solutions, Ed is well versed in barcode printers; but had never really sold
color label printers. According to Ed,
“I was really unaware that on-demand color label printers were available. I have sold and installed printers for years;
but these printers primarily added black text and barcodes to either all white
or preprinted labels. But then, I had a
customer that requested something different.”
Ed had as a customer, a manufacturer and packager of medical
safety supplies, who wanted to begin producing color labels. It seems this manufacturer had, in the past, applied
a single color label to all their products.
After a merger, the Marketing Dept. in the new combined company wanted a
completely different look for their labels.
As they produce and package hundreds of different products, they needed
a system to produce the labels with the new brand as they were required and in
various quantities. The new label design
is especially important for the U.S.
(Check out
the orange preprinted labels coming out of the Sato printer below left)
To find a
solution for the requirements of his medical supplies customer, Ed contacted Mike
Hoff at ScanSource to get a recommendation.
According to Ed, Mike recommended contacting the Epson specialist, Mark
Bunnell at ScanSource. The discussion with
Mark led to a referral to a contact with me; and a discussion on the TM-C3400. Based on Mark’s recommendation, Ed presented
the printer and its considerable capabilities to the customer. The TM-C3400 went over very well with the
customer and he was on the way to the first order of 2 units to get the
developmental process started.
After getting
the printers, Ed found it difficult to find media to use with the Epson label
printer. About the same time, I
contacted Ed to learn about the application at his medical supplies customer. I wanted to provide support and make sure his
customer started quickly and easily using the printer. Based on the situation, I worked with Ed to
get the correct media as well as provide training for the end customer on configuring
and using the TM-C3400.
Currently, the
manufacturer has one printer in production (see above) and one printer for
development purposes. However, in the
near future they will begin producing additional color labels on-demand. “We plan to have 4 to 5 of our vendors
begin producing the new color labels during the packaging process at their own facilities.” By having our vendors produce labels
as required, we will strengthen our brand as well as enable the flexibility to
revise the labels when necessary” according to the IT manager in the
manufacturing company.
When you have customers purchasing or merging together companies, be
sure to ask them about their branding strategy; and show them how on-demand
color labels fit into their efforts to strengthen their new brands.
Guy Mikel
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